A nice change

6

⚠️Trigger warning: Use of the word queer, not as an insult⚠️

Despite all the other things going on in her life, clothes seemed like an idiotic thing to be worried about, yet still Alva struggled to decide what to wear.

What do you wear to meet someone your age that your supposed to be family with, but don't actually really know anything about?

Finally Alva went with a black and white striped shirt, black leather jacket, black faded jeans, combat boots, added a little bit of eyeliner to their otherwise natural looking makeup, and brushed their hair so it fell over the side of their face. Hopefully looking like they could beat someone up would make their stomach stop twisting in so many knots.

Alva was walking downstairs when the doorbell rung. They quickened their steps while Emerson opened the door to reveal two figures that apparently were their relatives.

"Hey, I'm Remington," The adult said to them as he walked in with the teenager. He was slightly taller then Emerson. And Emerson was tall. With Remington's spiked light blonde hair and pale skin he could have pasted for albino, if not for his brown eyes that were so dark they could hardly make out where the iris ended and pupil began. Between his height and ghost like features Alva felt a little nervous by the man.

"I'm Alva," Obviously. What I am supposed to say to my 'uncle'? Why can't I ever just make words come out of my mouth as easy as other people can?

"I love the whole emo thing you got going on." His voice was slightly nastily but somehow also kind of deep. It wasn't unpleasant.

"Huh?"

Emerson finally noticed what his child was wearing, "Oh, yeah looks great."

"Emo?" What language are they speaking?

"Yeah, emo! Like the music? Just need a flat iron and I'd be convinced you just came straight from MySpace!"

"Remington, not everyone understands subcultures that died in 2009." This comment was made by the previously silent kid that came in with Remington. Alva's 'cousin' Shadow who, according to Emerson, was also non-binary.

"Well the three of us understand!" Remington said, jokingly sassy.

"Well the three of us are idiots." Shadow seemed very much at ease talking back to their dad. They addressed Alva with a slightly less confident "I'm Shadow by the way."

"Hi...uh...do you want to come upstairs?"

They shared a look with their dad before saying "Sure," and following Alva up the stairs. Great, they already think I'm weird. They probably hate me like everyone else.

"Remington is really weird sometimes, sorry about him."

"Huh?" Alva had been pretty much zoned out in her self deprecation and hadn't even realized they had made it to 'her' room, let alone that Shadow had taken a seat on the bed.

"He was trying to compliment your style, which is pretty cool by the way."

"Oh, thanks, I, uh, like your flannel."

⚠️"Thanks, have to assert my queerness to the world somehow."⚠️

"What?"

"Sorry, it's a gay joke, Em said you're also non-binary?"

"Yeah, but what's that got to do with flannel?"

"Have you never been on the internet?"

"Yeah, my mom was kinda protective over me. I only know about other gender identities cuz their was a kid a my school who was genderfluid."

"Well looks like I have to educate you on your culture." They said with a smile, dropping their large backpack on the bed and pulling out journals and sunscreen before finally fishing out an iPad.

"Why do you have sunscreen?"

They shrugged "Paranoia. You never know what's going to happen and what you need to prepare for that. So I carry around stuff I think I might need and it calms me down a little bit."

"So as long as you have that back pack, you don't think about what you're afraid of?"

"More like I know that I'll be safe if those things do happen so I'm not so focused on them."

"That's smart."

They shrugged again "Remington's idea,"

"Well I'm glad you have something to calm you down."

"He helps a lot, and so does Autumn and Emerson. So you want to look at spicy readit memes until our guardians bring us food or-?"

"Okay, let's do whatever that is," Alva said with a hint of humor. Shadow gave a little chuckle under their breath before quickly typing in the passcode. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard.